One of my brothers-in-law once said that Adrian and I were the two most unassertive people on the planet.
He was right. Adrian and I did not how to negotiate the give-and-take of relationships, business or personal. For Adrian, it meant that people he dealt with were either angels or devils. He would trust them unequivocally with his life until they did one thing wrong, and then he would banish them forever.
I am the same way—not by making business transactions personal, which I hate to do, but in the all-or-nothing nature of my relationships. For me to speak up about something a friend has said or done that I don’t like is next to impossible.
In my dating life, I was never able to tell a man that I wanted to break up with him. I wrote letters to do that.
When I was in high-school there was a boy in my class who wanted to date me, and I’d always say I had to wash my hair on the nights he asked me to go out with him.
“You can’t have to wash your hair every night,” he said.
“Yes, I do,” I insisted.
He finally stopped asking.
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I had a friend in San Diego years ago who annoyed me occasionally with the things she said and did, but I never objected to them. I never argued with her. Then she got pregnant and asked me to throw her a baby shower.
I hate baby showers. The idea of actually instigating one and hosting it was beyond consideration. How could a friend ask that of me?
I gave her a beautiful baby shower, oohing and aaahing over the booties and onesies, along with all of her friends.
And then I wrote her a good-bye letter.
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A year ago, one of my sisters told me she couldn’t listen to me go on any more about the horrible last months of Adrian’s life—that I should rely on my therapist, not her, for that kind of sympathy.
I was crushed, but I didn’t tell her. I sulked silently and used this grievance to frame everything she said and did from that point on.
A year later when I finally got the courage to talk to my sister about this incident, we worked it all out in half an hour. We do love each other, after all. But I spent a needless year in nursing my grievance because I wasn’t assertive enough to say how I felt at the moment it happened.
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In the 1970s I was writing how-to books—mostly on things I’d failed at, like how to open your own retail store, or how to win at poker. The writer who can’t do something is the one most sensitive to the difficulties of learning a new skill.
Assertiveness training was popular then, and I was reading every assertiveness book I could get my hands on because I desperately needed that information. Of course I wanted to write a book on it, too.
My book would be about assertiveness at work—assertiveness for managers.
My good friend Eileen was studying assertiveness also, and giving workshops on it to make an extra buck. We were both trying to make an extra buck in those days.
I took Eileen on as co-author of the book, and we actually gave an assertiveness workshop together. After we’d thrown up in the bathroom from nerves, we acted perfectly assured in front of the audience. They loved us.
Our book was published in hardback, a paperback edition, and a cassette tape. But the publisher wouldn’t use the title I wanted to, Assertiveness for Managers, because they said assertiveness was just a fad that would pass quickly. The book was titled Taking Charge on the Job, a title that did not help sales. But I wasn’t assertive enough to insist they use my title.
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I am still good friends with Eileen in spite of miles between us. She called me the other day to ask how to get out of something her boss wanted her to do. I reminded her of the assertive way to handle it, coaching her to be firm.
By writing a book on assertiveness, I learned all the techniques. I know the proper things to say in each situation and how to say them.
Eileen called after the meeting with her boss to report that she had failed to get out of the assignment.
I understood.
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Fear is behind my unassertiveness. Fear that the world will blow up if I object or complain. Fear that I will blow up.
